The American Botanical Council (ABC), Austin, TX, has elected three new members to its Board of Trustees: Bethany Davis; Richard Kingston, PharmD; and Holly Shimizu. The new trustees bring decades of combined experience in a diverse range of fields related to medicinal plants. Ms. Davis, Dr. Kingston, and Ms. Shimizu are recognized leaders in dietary supplement industry regulation and environmental sustainability practices; clinical toxicology, botanical safety, and pharmacy; and public horticulture and herbal education, respectively.

“ABC is delighted to welcome Bethany, Holly, and Rick to our Board of Trustees,” said ABC Founder and Executive Director Mark Blumenthal. “Each of these new board members has numerous skills and strengths that will help ABC achieve new successes in the fields of medicinal plant education and research. Now that ABC is in its 30th year, and as ABC determines its future growth and direction, these new trustees will help empower the board and ABC to fulfil its unique nonprofit educational mission, publications, and programs.”

The addition of these three experts brings the total number of ABC Board of Trustees members to 11. In April 2017, long-time ABC trustee Fredi Kronenberg, PhD, a champion of integrative medicine for women’s health, died after a long illness. The decision to expand the board was made unanimously at the annual Board of Trustees meeting at ABC’s headquarters in November 2017. More information about the eight other board members can be found on ABC’s website.

Since 2011, Ms. Davis has worked for FoodState, a whole-food supplements company based in Manchester, New Hampshire, which owns two well-known supplement brands: MegaFood and INNATE Response Formulas. Currently, she is the company’s director of regulatory and industry affairs.

Dr. Kingston is the co-founder and president of regulatory and scientific affairs at SafetyCall International, a company that specializes in adverse event management and regulatory compliance services, where he has worked since 2004. He is also a long-time faculty member at the University of Minnesota (UM) where he has served for more than 35 years and currently holds the rank of clinical professor of pharmacy. At UM, he is the course director for “Therapeutics of Herbs and Other Natural Medicinals,” which is taught in the College of Pharmacy and available to all students in the Academic Health Center. In addition, Kingston has been an adjunct professor at the National Center for Natural Product Research (NCNPR), an FDA Center of Excellence at the University of Mississippi’s College of Pharmacy, since 2014.

Dr. Kingston is a member of numerous professional organizations, including the American Association of Poison Control Centers, the American Academy of Clinical Toxicology, the Household and Commercial Products Association, and the Society of Toxicology, among others.

Ms. Shimizu has held numerous leadership positions in the fields of public horticulture, herbal education, and plant conservation. From 2000 to 2014, she served as the executive director of the United States Botanic Garden (USBG), one of the oldest botanical gardens in the United States, which is located on the National Mall in front of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, DC.

During her time as executive director of the USBG, Ms. Shimizu led the effort for the garden to become a founding partner of the Sustainable Sites Initiative, which is considered to be one of the most comprehensive certification systems for sustainable land management and development. Prior to becoming executive director, Ms. Shimizu was the USBG’s assistant executive director and public programs manager.

Ms. Shimizu has also served as an advisor for the White House Gardens and played a role in redesigning the Rose Garden in 1983. She also worked with former first lady Laura Bush on a long-term botanical research and identification project for Camp David.

Most recently, Ms. Shimizu was the interim executive director of the American Horticultural Society in Alexandria, Virginia. She has also served as the managing director of the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, Virginia, and was the first curator of the National Herb Garden at the US National Arboretum in Washington, DC.

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